


Beyond the Pale

by KirkyPet



Series: How Furiosa Lost her Arm and Narrowly Avoided Becoming a Wife [4]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Gen, Pre-Mad Max: Fury Road, agnostic warboy, exiled crew, is citadel toxic?, longings for home, slightly irish just because
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:05:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8590123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirkyPet/pseuds/KirkyPet
Summary: An exiled crew in the outer reaches of the Citadel territory. A cynical and jaded war boy wants to go home.





	

It wasn't demanding work, being in Sharkey's crew. At best, it could be said that there were long periods of boredom, occasionally punctuated by short periods of excitement. Often followed by long periods of being dead. In short, they specialised in building and testing explosives in the outer reaches of the Citadel's territory.

*****

Shambo didn't know how many thousands of days it had been since Sharkey's crew had been exiled to the Edges. He'd long since lost track. Maybe it had only  _seemed_  long. 

At the beginning, he hadn't minded being so far away from the Citadel. It had seemed like almost a relief. He'd always had a bit of a mouth on him. That and an unhealthy disregard for authority conspired to frequently get him into bother. Like the time Dux got promoted to Imperator. "The higher the monkey climbs the tree, the further up its arse you see" was one of his gems. That and "shite flies high when you hit it with a shovel" hadn't gone down too well. He really needed to check his six before coming out with that sort of thing.  

But what had really put the kibosh on the fortunes of the Sharkey crew was when Gipe managed to blow up the shooting range (and half the warboys there) with some experimental IEDs. Gipe was a clever bastard with fuses but not exactly  _present_  most of the time.  

It definitely all went arseways from there. And the other crew members hadn't exactly been exemplary contributors to the Citadel. Shower of useless shites at the best of times. So it had been decreed on high that the explosives division would be 'relocated' to the Edges, i.e. far enough from the Citadel to make a holy show of themselves as much as they pleased.  

*****

The crew were camped atop a craggy outcrop in the desert wastes. They called it the Island. 

So far from home, Shambo had lost track of time. He'd made markings on the side of the Wild Rover in an attempt to number the days. But they'd got into their thousands, so he suspected Steek and Spide of messing with them. He'd threatened to bust their dial for them if they mucked about with his count, but it didn't make any difference. Maybe it had been that long. It  _felt_  like thousands of days anyway...which was weird because he'd been getting a bit long in the tooth when they'd got kicked out. He really should be dead by now. He was sure his lumps were smaller than they used to be. 

They'd found water, just a poor wee waterhole deep within the Island. It was just enough to keep the seven of them alive. Between lizards and the fleshy plants they'd managed to cultivate in the shady cracks, they'd managed to keep going longer than any of them had expected. They got precious little from the Citadel in the way of supplies in exchange for their grenades and thundersticks. 

They didn't even have paint to keep the sun off. They'd had to resort to wearing  _shirts_  which was just embarrassing. That and keeping in the shade in the hottest part of the day. At least they'd managed to keep their heads shaven, though Shambo had got pretty lax lately. It was easy to get a bit heterodox in the Edges. It wasn't a bad life. He felt pretty good, physically, not sick much these days. And he was free to express his thoughts as openly as he liked. Nobody around to give a shit. 

***** 

The problem was, it was so boring. Shambo wasn't all that interested in blowing shit up, which was all Gipe talked about. Sharkey used to be a bit of craic for an Imperator, but he'd never got over being banished. These days, he'd be off getting pished on traded drink and whatever could be smuggled from the Citadel. He'd wander off and start picking arguments with rocks. When he did sober up, once in a blue moon, he'd just sit holding his head, going  _'Don't tell me I'm still on that_ _feckin_ _Island...'_.  

***** 

As aforementioned, the rest of the crew were liabilities. He wasn't sure how Sharkey had picked them all up. Gipe was alright but not much use if the conversation veered away from his specialist subject.  

Champ was a bit of an anomaly, for Sharkey's crew anyway. He was loyal, unselfish, built like a brick shithouse and none too bright. He followed orders unthinkingly, and never thought for a second that he wouldn't stick by his Imperator in his exile. In short, he was the perfect warboy. He could have gone far. Sometimes Shambo wishes he would go far...especially when he tried to keep up crew morale by calling them 'The Magnificent Seven'.

Cricket was an inoffensive soul, but he wasn't firing on all cylinders, that boy. He had to have 'left' and 'right' painted on the toes of his boots, no kidding. And even then he'd get it wrong.

Steek and Spide were skittery wee shites who thought they were the cat's pyjamas in their souped-up Ford Fiesta. They were more verbally than physically aggressive, often informing war boys from other crews that they'd  _'knack their_ _ballix_ _in'_  if they didn't acknowledge their ride was some flash.  There were few vehicles in the Citadel that could be described as tasteful. The 'Shaggin Wagon' was certainly not one of them – with it's massive spoiler, blue metallic paint (it was a mystery even to Shambo where they got a hold of that) and the strange blue light emanating from the below the car's chassis.  It had always been a source of amazement to Shambo that the pair weren't walking round with more bruises on them, but it's likely that other crews didn't actually understand what they were saying, or at least found them too funny to batter. 

***** 

Shambo wanted to go home. It hadn't seemed that great at the time. Deep down, he couldn't really understand why people thought Joe was a god. He always thought he was missing something. But even his underdeveloped sense of self-preservation told him that the Citadel did not tolerate free-thinkers. At least, he'd never met any live ones.  

But he missed people. He missed living under a roof. He missed being in the Repair Shop up to his oxters in a V8. 

He'd never even been back on a delivery. Imperator Dux had made it very clear that the only one of the Sharkey crew to come within ten clicks of the Citadel was Champ. _I tell a lie_ , he thought - Cricket was sometimes tolerated as a second pair of hands when there was a big delivery on.

Shambo sighed. He'd have to do something pretty belter if he was ever going to make it back home. 

**Author's Note:**

> The only reason I gave this crew a bit of a regional dialect (Irish/Northern Irish) is because all the good names for Warboys had been taken and I needed some inspiration. It just followed from there. I also wanted some explosions to take place at some point. Er, this may be in very bad taste, but stereotypes are there to be played with.  
> And I thought war boy crews might well develop some kind of common identity and dialect, especially if they're exiled for years. 
> 
> "...long periods of boredom, occasionally punctuated by short periods of excitement. Often followed by long periods of being dead." This is one of those paraphrased quotes that nobody's entirely sure where it came from. Probably the First World War. But I think Terry Pratchett might have been involved at some point.
> 
> This is fairly heavily inspired by 'Father Ted' (90s surreal comedy about three disreputable priests - _not that kind: it's a comedy, remember_ \- exiled to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland). Imperator Dux may actually be Bishop Brennan. Imperator Sharkey is not particularly inspired by Father Jack Hackett but I suspect their sentiments might coincide during periods of sobriety.  
> Feargal Sharkey - original vocalist for The Undertones. Wikipedia entry specifies his CV as including Scout Leader, delivery man and tv repairman. Seem like good qualifications for Imperator. And thought it sounded like a suitably spiky Imperator name.
> 
> Glossary:  
> A Shambo is a shamrock-shaped sandwich from a particular Irish sandwich chain.  
> Urban Dictionary will provide details on what a Steek or a Spide is. It's not complimentary.  
> Jimmy Cricket is a veteran comedian who wears wellies with 'left' and 'right' on them (but on the wrong feet).  
> Gipe is defined as 'a friendly harmless idiot' in irishslang.info (website also credited for Shambo's unfortunate asides regarding Imperator Dux). Gipe also has many and various definitions on Urban Dictionary (em...really varied), but I did like this one - an acronym 'Good Idea Poorly Executed' - something that might have been spectacular if it wasn't totally bungled in the execution. Which seems highly appropriate.  
> Champ in this context implies both fighting prowess and a shortage of brain function (i.e. thick as champ).


End file.
